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Tuesday, August 30, 2016

As I mentioned in
the preceding blog, live classical guitar music was a very rare
phenomenon in New Delhi when I was living there during the last 30 years
of the 20th century (except for a short break of four years). But the
versatile Canadian guitarist Liona Boyd's visit to the city in 1987
created both an opportunity and an obligation for me to study the
history and geography of the Spanish-guitar culture, so that I could
review the event in a significant manner.

My
main sources of information on Western music traditions were usually
the heavy volumes on the reference shelves of the excellent libraries in
the British Council, the US information Service, and Max Müller Bhavan -- particularly the Encyclopedia Britannica and the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Sometimes -- though very rarely -- I also borrowed books on
specific themes, composers or performing artists, or glanced at the
culture pages of important British and American newspapers and
magazines.

As
usual, I got so deeply involved in my research on this occasion that I
had gained far more knowledge than was necessary for merely conveying my
impressions of the concert I was reviewing as an articulate layman.
But within a few months after that event, the legendary guitar maestro
Andrés Segovia passed away -- and I was able to write an essay
about him which was so substantial that it established my image as a
very knowledgeable critic in New Delhi's exclusive Western music
circles -- and yes, one who never showed it off usually!

In
fact, looking at this tightly-written text after 30 years, I am myself
surprised that it had such high specific gravity. But as you can see,
what it actually contained wasn't any great knowledge of
classical guitar music (and Segovia's in particular), but some
crystal-clear insights into the stories of the maestro and his
instrument -- which was (and still is) true of all my endeavors as an
articulate layman.

__________

Glossary

Max Müller Bhavan -- German literary and cultural center.

________

THE HINDU,New Delhi

19 June, 1987

The saga of Segovia

The
passing away of Andrés Segovia of Spain a few weeks ago -- at the
advanced age of 94 -- marks the end of the long and fabulous career of a
remarkable man who had secured a new lease of life for the classical
guitar.

The
history of the guitar is a rather checkered one. Like the lute, it was
introduced to European music in Spain by the Arabs in the medieval
ages. Although during the Renaissance period (14th to 16th centuries)
it could not compete with the lute for pan-European acceptance, it
developed very strong roots in Spain under the name of 'vihuela', in the
folk and art music traditions alike. Notable composers who arranged
works for the guitar in this early phase of the instrument's growth in
Western music were Luys Milan and Miguel de Fuenllano.

Growth and decline During
the Baroque era (17th and 18th centuries), the lute became
over-stringed and unwieldy, though it continued to dominate the scene.
On the other hand, the guitar shed its cumbersome double-strings in
favor of five single gut strings ; moreover, with its bowl-like back
altered into a flat one, it became much easier to handle. As a result,
the guitar began to be played by music-minded amateurs all over Europe,
especially in France. In
the second half of the 18th century, the lute became quite obsolete,
but the guitar became still more popular in Europe, particularly in
England, France and Germany. Its ascendancy in Spain continued, of
course. The standard number of strings was increased to six, and
metallic frets on the fingerboard were introduced. Easily portable and
fairly inexpensive, the guitar was now an instrument played not only by
wealthy amateurs but by ordinary people too. During
the romantic period in Western music (19th century), the guitar became a
heavier and more solidly built instrument, and it continued to be
popular for some time. Composers like Schubert and Berlioz were known
to play the guitar. The dazzling technical genius Paganini too fancied
the guitar when he was not wielding the violin, and he even composed
some chamber music for it. Specific music for the guitar was composed
by the Italian guitarist Mauro Giulani and the great Spanish guitar
virtuoso, Fernando Sor.

But
somehow, the guitar never became a successful concert instrument even
at this stage. On the contrary, in the second half of the 19th century,
it was almost totally eclipsed by the predominance of the piano in
Western art music. Two great musicians were mainly responsible for
preventing this classical instrument from fading out altogether, and
these were the Spaniards Francisco Tárrega and Andrés Segovia.

Revival and refinement

Tárrega
(1852-1909) was a talented guitarist and music teacher, and he
transcribed for the guitar more than a hundred works by Beethoven,
Chopin, and the folk-oriented Spanish composers Albéniz and Granados.
He also composed many original pieces for the solo guitar.
(Music-lovers in Delhi will recall hearing his tremulous composition Recuerdos de la Alhambra
in a pleasing recital by the visiting Canadian guitarist Liona Boyd a
few months ago). Apart from this, Tárrega took the initiative to free
the right hand from its traditionally fixed position, and developed a
more flexible modern guitar-playing technique.

Andrés
Segovia (1893-1987) consolidated the progress, and found the most
sophisticated use for the right hand -- not only relaxing its movement
and increasing its mobility further, but also manipulating the strings
in subtle ways with finger-tips and nails, thereby achieving a wide
spectrum of tonality and nuances. Though not himself an original
composer, Segovia transcribed many works composed for the ancient lute
and the Spanish 'vihuela', and also pieces by such great composers as
Mozart, Handel, Chopin and Schumann.

Influence on composers

In
fact, it would seem to have been Segovia's infinite regret that the
greatest composers of Western classical music had failed to create
specific works for the guitar -- music for which had, by and large, been
produced only by those who were themselves guitarists. He is said to
have declared that outstanding guitarists did not emerge because great
composers did not write for the guitar, and the composers did not write
for the guitar because there were no great performers.

But
in a way, the maestro himself broke the vicious circle, for he did
inspire and influence several reputed contemporary composers to create
substantial works for the guitar, including some concertos and sonatas.
Among these were Manuel de Falla and Joaquin Turina of Spain, Albert
Roussel of France, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco of Italy, Heitor
Villa-Lobos of Brazil, and Manuel Ponce of Mexico.Segovia
was an active concert artist till very recently, and had toured
extensively all over the world. Unfortunately, we in India have had no
opportunity of hearing his music in a live performance, but have to
rest content with our limited access to his recorded music.

Source of inspiration

Segovia
is noted for the great encouragement and guidance given by him to a
younger generation of guitarists represented by musicians like John
Williams of England and Alirio Diaz of Venezuela. He was also a source
of tremendous inspiration to a third generation of guitar virtuosi.
Thus, he not only helped to widen the classical guitar's repertoire, but
also influenced the growth of modern performing styles.

Spanning
practically the entire 2oth century, the maestro's extraordinary career
has been like a long bridge which has ensured the effective
assimilation of a noble musical tradition into the Western art music of
the present day, and surely of the future too. Such is the saga of
Segovia.

__________

PostScript, 2016

Midnight summons to Maestro

When
I said in 1987 that we in India had to be content with our limited
access to Segovia's recorded music, I was actually making an
understatement. For although we did have limited access to long-playing
records and audio-cassettes of Western classical music, classical
guitar never figured on the shelves of the music shops. The only way to
hear any recordings of Segovia or any other legendary guitarists was to
get them from somewhere abroad, which was never easy unless you had
some close friend or relative living there.

You
just couldn't ask even close friends or relatives in India going abroad
on short visits to bring you any music records, because with the
extremely small foreign exchange allowance available to them those
days, you'd have been asking them to make a great sacrifice. Speaking
for myself, I had friends in the foreign Embassies and cultural
centers who would have got me whatever I wanted, but I never felt
inclined to take or cause such trouble.

How
amazingly different are things today -- just 30 years later, even in
India -- when we can simply press a key or touch a screen, and instantly
take stock of any kind of music or dance anywhere in the world! Like,
for instance, even summoning Maestro Segovia to perform for us at midnight just by clicking on the following link : -

Friday, August 19, 2016

Talking
about guitars and South America in the preceding blog, I couldn't help
recalling a memorable Spanish guitar recital I had attended and reviewed
in New Delhi 30 years ago.

One
of the rewards of writing on Western music in a prestigious English
newspaper in India's capital city was that when reviewing rare
performances of some genres of music unfamiliar in Indian music circles,
it was necessary to view the
events in a historic and geographic perspective for the benefit of
most readers -- thus creating opportunities for writing wide-angled
essays which would transcend the immediate context and would be readable
even long afterwards, as part of a useful cultural chronicle.

I hope the following text fulfils that expectation :-

__________

Glossary

Carnatic music -- Classical music of South India.

Kamani Hall -- Spacious (600+) modern concert hall in New Delhi.

Tamil -- South Indian language, with classical roots, mainly spoken in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

__________

THE HINDU, New Delhi

20 February 1987

Glamorous Guitarist From Canada

The
powerful sound of the acoustic and electric versions of the
metal-stringed guitar (played with a piece of metal, wood or bone called
the 'plectrum'), accompanied by an array of other instruments including
drums, has become universally familiar as a result of the increasing
influence of Western popular music all over the world. But
the subtle sound of the Spanish guitar (the gut or nylon strings of
which are plucked or strummed with the fingers), played in a folk or
true classical style, is a rare thing to hear except in the Iberian
peninsula or the Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries of Latin
America.

The
ancestry of the modern version of the classical guitar can be traced
back to the lute family of the Renaissance period ; but its present
shape, working repertoire and playing techniques have by and large been
developed only within the last hundred years or so. In Western
classical music, the guitar has only a marginal role to play, like the
clarinet in Carnatic music. Generally, classical music for the guitar
is provided by transcriptions of compositions meant for the piano,
harpischord, etc.

Although
in New Delhi these days we have a fairly good flow of Western music, an
authentic Spanish guitar recital is a very rare event. The virtuosity
of master performers like Andres Segovia, Manuel Lopez Ramos, Narcisco
Yepes, Alexandre Lagoya, Turibio Santos, Julian Bream or John William
-- or the works of composers like Fernando Sor, Frederico Torroba,
Francisco Tarrega, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Manuel
Ponce, Antonio Lauro, Frank Martin or Malcolm Arnold -- are quite
unfamiliar to us here in India.

Mixed colors Therefore,
the two guitar recitals given recently by the Canadian guitarist Liona
Boyd (who has studied under Lagoya and Bream, among others), as part of
the wide-ranging Canadian Week gala in the Capital, were very welcome. I
attended the second recital last Friday, and it was a rewarding
experience. Under
the limelight, Liona's abundant blonde hair gives her the look of a
majestic lion, in spite of her frail figure. But the glamorous image
she projects on the concert platform owes as much to the excellence of
her performance as to the force of her presence. In
the first half of the recital, she presented, among other things, three
short classical works by Bach, transcribed from his scores for the
harpsichord and the flute, as well as three modern pieces composed by
the French-Canadian Richard Fortin. This was followed by a lilting
piece with a heavy Latin American accent, composed by the guitarist
herself. The
second half of the concert was exclusively tinted by Spanish and Latin
American colors, for which the finger-style guitar is ideally suited.
To start with, there were two transcribed numbers entitled Mallorca and Asturias,
by the pianist-composer Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909), who was known for
his patriotic fervor and had drawn considerable inspiration from the
rich tradition of Spanish folk music. This was followed by a famous
work called Recuerdos de la Alhambra ('Memories of Alhambra'),
by the Spanish guitarist-composer Francisco Tarrega (1852-1909), who had
written or transcribed nearly 200 pieces for the classical guitar.

Ms.
Boyd then took us on a delightful tour of South America. The
highlights of this section were two lively pieces with a Brazilian touch
, composed by the guitarist herself, and a folk melody of the Inca
tribes of Peru, which strongly resembled the nostalgic Gurani music of Paraguay and invoked visions of gray mountains, green valleys, and poncho-clad hillmen riding lethargic ponies.

The
performance was characterized throughout by the measured and immaculate
rendering of the chosen works, the tremolo sequences emerging as the
performer's strongest point, especially in her recital of Tarrega's
intricate composition Alhambra.

Apparently
the concert was a rare treat for the enitre international community in
the Capital, for the full gathering in the Kamani hall, which was
dominated by foreigners, responded to every number with resounding
applause.

__________

PostScript, 2026

Wide range of mixed menu

There's
a Tamil turn of phrase which says that to test a whole pot of boiled
rice, it's enough to test a single grain of it. Seen in that light,
the memorable performance by
Liona Boyd in New Delhi 30 years ago was a convincing cross-section of
the very wide range of her many-sided repertoire.

Reading my own review after such a long time, I was tempted to look for her name on YouTube, and found she's still very active. The following and other related videos will give you a good idea of her colorful accomplishment :-

Sunday, August 14, 2016

As
an earnest lover of European and other foreign music living in New
Delhi in the last three decades of the 20th century, I didn't usually
have any opportunity to attend a live performance of South
America's folk music. So when such a rare occasion did arise in
1992, I had very great expectations of not only getting entertained,
but also being enlightened. But what actually happened? . . . just
read on!

_________

Glossary

ICCR -- Indian C0uncil of Cultural Relations.

Bombay/Bangalore -- British-regime names of West/South Indian cities, now called Mumbai/Bengaluru.

Kamani Hall -- Large, modern auditorium in New Delhi, with 600+ seats.

________

THE HINDU,New Delhi

21 February 1992

No fresh insights

One
of the specific responsibilities assigned by the Government to the
Indian Council for Cultural Relations is to improve the cultural
relations between India and the Latin American countries. Of course,
much depends also on the initiatives taken by the concerned foreign
Embassies in India. Last week ICCR and the Venezuelan Embassy joined
hands to organize a performance by a visiting instrumental quartet from
Caracas, said to specialize in the folk music of Venezuela. The group
was to perform in Bombay and Bangalore also.

Unfamiliar traditions

Certain
kinds of lilting South American band music (such as Rhumba, Samba and
Cha-cha-cha) are quite familiar to many of us in India, thanks to
Hollywood movies and gramophone records. In recent years, music-lovers
in Delhi were able to hear a little bit of the Brazilian composer
Villa-Lobos during the visits of some Western classical guitarists. But
so far as the folk music traditions of South America are concerned, our
awareness is very poor.

There is a particularly attractive genre of South American folk music called Gurani,
which figures prominently in the cultural life of Paraguay. Some 15 or
20 years ago, an internationally known ensemble called Los Chiriguanos
popularized this music in Europe, singing and playing the Gurani harp
and the Spanish acoustic guitar. Their music was so authentic and
arresting that the contents of their audio album could invoke vivid and
romantic impressions of their homeland's hills and valleys, ranches and
forests, birds and ponies, cowboys and village belles, love songs and
rustic dances.

What
kind of folk music exists elsewhere in South America? If one thinks of
Brazil, all one can visualize are feverish scenes of urban
festivities. Argentina does suggest the folk dance form of Zamba,
but what else do they have there? What do they have in Peru,Chile,
Uruguay, Bolivia, Colombia., Venezuela? There is hardly any knowledge
of this in India. So, naturally one imagined that the recital of 'folk
and traditional music' by the visiting group called El Cuarteto from Venezuela would bring fresh insights and valuable new knowledge.

Cosmetic treatment

From
this point of view, however, the event turned out to be rather
disappointing. What kind of music does the petroleum culture inspire in
a land where Spanish blood mixes with that of African Americans and
American Indians? This question was not effectively answered by the
performance under review.

What
the two guitarists and the double-bass and flute players did was to
reel off a series of Polkas, Waltzes, and sterilized Merengues, which
produced an impression of eclectic rather than ethnic music. Some of
the numbers obviously had their origin in folk traditions, which they
seemed to echo faintly ; but they were all cosmetically treated
versions which failed to evoke any strong local colors.

It
would only be fair to mention that the evening's music
provided excellent entertainment, and the sizable audience in the Kamani
Hall responded warmly. The proceedings were enlivened by the humorous
explanations offered by the guitarists in mellifluous Spanish, which
were translated into good English.

Strident flute

The
intruding element in the music of the ensemble seemed to be the wind
instrument. The flute was well-played, but its aggressive tone
obliterated the vibrant individuality of the guitars. (Apart from the
normal Spanish guitars, Venezuelan guitars with four and 12 strings were
also used). Whenever the flute fell silent over short spells, the
guitars came into their own, displaying powerfully evocative qualities.
But as soon as the listener would begin to be wrapped up in that
enchanting sound, the strident flute would step in and quickly erase
the half-formed impressions. Ultimately no nostalgic memories of the
music lingered in the listener's mind after the event, and only
impressions of the overpowered guitars survived.

The four
musicians who constitute the quartet are the brothers Miguel and Raul
Delgado Estevez (guitars), Telesforo Naranjo (double bass), and Jose
Antonio (flute). Each of them has some solid achievements to his credit
as a musician and/or music teacher in Venezuela. They seem to have got
together as a group to prove something important. Unfortunately it was
not clear from this performance what exactly they wish to prove,
particularly when facing foreigners living on the opposite side of the
world.

__________

PostScript, 2016

Strong wind blows strings away!

As
I keyed in this 24-year-old text here, I had a sudden misgiving that I
might have made a big mistake when I blamed the flute for
overpowering the guitars, because since then I have obtained many fresh
impressions of South American folk music -- (thanks to YouTube, of
course!) -- and am now well aware that wind instruments like the
panpipes do have a loud and aggressive role in the traditional music of
the countries situated in the Andes mountain range along the west coast
of the continent. And it occurred to me that the quartet's interpretation of Venezuela's folk music might have been quite authentic, and perhaps as an ignorant foreigner I had no business to question its character.

So
I found some videos of the El Cuarteto ensemble in YouTube -- (they
seem to be still very active) -- just to see if and where I had gone
wrong. And quite intriguingly, I got exactly the same impression as I
did 24 years ago in their live show in New Delhi : that the flute is
completely stifling the guitars and reducing their powerful sound to
mere characterless background noise, except when it rests for very short
spells.

Just hear the following recitals and see for yourself : and please note how
forceful the guitars and double-bass sound when the flute isn't blowing
them away for a minute in the second video :-

So
then, ignorant foreigner or not, perhaps I didn't really go wrong in my
response to their performance in New Delhi! But when I take a fresh look at the whole issue now -- with the advantage of watching YouTube in a wider perspective -- I
realize that perhaps the intrusive element in this context was (and
is) not the aggressive tone of the flute, as I had said in my review,
but the excellence of the forceful guitars.

Wherever
wind instruments (panpipes, flute, etc.) are the backbone of any folk
music tradition, the guitar -- if used -- serves only as
a percussion instrument to regulate and enhance the flow of the rhythmic
pulse, merely as a substitute for drums. On
the other hand, where the guitar is a prime instrument, it can produce a
very sophisticated blend of melodic and rhythmic sound effects. So
when very highly accomplished guitar players team up with a forceful
flutemaster, their visibly diminished role as mere providers of
percussion support creates a jarring element (which can be spotted by
sensitive music-lovers even in distant foreign lands).

So
here's some sincere advice to the globe-trotting
Quartet of Caracas, from an earnest and articulate layman living on the
opposite side of the globe : by all means, Señores, do
carry on as you've been doing ; but in every performance you
give hereafter -- whether at home or abroad -- please also include a
couple of flute-free numbers which will create plenty of scope for the
twin guitars to shine brightly, and your whole performance will be
better balanced and far more exciting!

Friday, August 5, 2016

I don't have a
written record of my impressions of the dynamic folk dancers of the
Moiseyev Ballet from Moscow in New Delhi's colossal open-air auditorium
Rabindra Rangshala in 1972 (which I had mentioned in the preceding
blog) ; but I do have my reflections on the amazing puppets of
the Marionette Theatre from Australia which performed in the same
awesome venue a few years later :-

__________

Glossary & annotations

Rabindra Rangshala
-- Colossal outdoor amphitheater on lush woodlands on the fringes of
New Delhi (capacity 8,000), named after Rabindranath
Tagore, world-famous poet in Bengali language.

When
a puppet-show has achieved international fame, it signifies that an
elementary art form has been transformed into a sophisticated
technology, and it deserves a vast audience and an auditorium to match.

It
wasn't surprising, therefore, when I learnt several months ago that
representatives of the Marionette Theater of Australia were in New
Delhi, inspecting the Rabindra Rangshala on Ridge Road, as a prelude to
their performance of the puppet drama The Tintookies , which took place on March 24th and 25th.

My
only complaint about the Rabindra Rangshala is that it is far away from
the mainstream of metropolitan life, and is connected by a narrow road
where regular bus services are few and it isn't safe at night.

But
obviously this location will be more accessible in the foreseeable
future, as areas under it are developed, and a wider and better-lighted
road is laid.

Open-air wonder

Viewed
from any angle, this open-air auditorium is a wonder. It is structured
into a vast, deep pit, with galleries which can hold five or six
thousand people. The design is superb, with widely-curving and steeply
sloping rows of red-stone slabs (which serve as steps as well as seats),
ensuring maximum visibility of the stage.

The acoustics are splendid, too, the sound being preserved by the high walls of the pit. Yet the open air is very much there.

It's
a long and many-stepped descent from the gate to the auditorium. As
you proceed you have a breath-taking view of the high-rise buildings of
Connaught Circus far away, and you feel you are in some fashionable
European city.

And a show like The Tintookies attracts an international audience, which enhances this impression.

Magic and mystery

Certainly
any show which is staged in this gigantic auditorium has to have some
unusual dimension if it is to be impressive. And the Marionette show
has that extra something which counts.

The fairy-tale behind this puppet drama isn't much of a story. There are The Tintookies, a magic people, some cute jungle animals, a pixie man, a magician, many magic effects, a balloon flight and a dream sequence.

The
leaflet which was distributed didn't tell the story clearly, but that
hardly mattered. The important thing was the amazing dexterity of the
puppet-masters, which didn't call for any commentary.

There
wasn't a trick of the trade which was omitted. The gesticulations of
the puppets and the movements of their lips as they spoke were truly
remarkable. Even the silent fish were opening and closing their mouths
constantly in an uncanny way.

Often
a dozen or more life-size puppets occupied the stage and performed
incredible antics. How all those strings remained in position without
getting entangled in a messy knot was a mystery.

Spellbinding shows

There
were thousands of wildly enthusiastic children in the gathering, but
the adults became adoring spectators too. Here were a couple of hours
of sheer fantasy, with some good background music, and a highly
developed technology for you to marvel about.

The
Indian Cultural Society and the Education Ministry's Culture Department
must be congratulated for organizing this remarkable show, and we must
thank the Australians sincerely for coming over and performing here.

Last
time I spent a couple of spellbinding hours like this at Rabindra
Rangshala was in 1972, When the Culture Department had invited the
Moiseyev Ballet from Moscow. I hope such exciting experiences will be
frequent in the future.

__________

PostScript, 2016

Tragic turns : dis-use and dissolution

There
seems to be an intriguing bond between the Marionette Theatre
and Rabindra Rangshala. The puppet company was founded in 1960, and
the auditorium was built at about the same time. The company was closed
down in 1990 for want of resources, and since about the same time the
marvelous auditorium has remained unused (on account of a judicial
ruling declaring it to be an encroachment on forest land) and has been
ruined.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Talking
about music and dance (of the kind we like), how long do we remember
what we call 'memorable occasions'? The answer, of course, is that it
depends not only on the character and excellence of a given performance,
but also on the frequency or infrequency (or uniqueness) of
the occasions when we encounter the given genre of music or dance.

Naturally,
fine live shows of foreign music and dance (of the kind we like) are
more memorable than equally fine live performances of our own native
music or dance (of the kind we like), for the simple reason that we
encounter them on our soil only very rarely.

Anyway,
45 years aren't long enough to let my very first live encounter with Russian, Ukrainian and other folk dances of the Soviet Union fade
away from my memory. I don't have a precise record of my impressions of
that massive performance in front of an enormous audience, but here's
my recollection of it in a humorous article I wrote in a similar context
several years later :-

__________

Glossary & annotations

Ballayram -- In the Evening News (as in Shankar's Weekly earlier)
I liked to play with words and names, twisting or coining them in
amusing topic-oriented ways -- an unconventional practice I had to
give up when writing for THE HINDU later on. And Ballayram was irresistible in the Bolshoi context, sounding so much like Balaraman/Balram, real South/North Indian names!

Rabindra Rangshala
-- Colossal outdoor amphitheater on lush woodlands on the fringes of
New Delhi (capacity 8,000), named after Rabindranath
Tagore, world-famous poet in Bengali language.

Vish -- I was signing Delhiberations with a pen name : RAJA VISHNU. So naturally my imaginary friends who figured in the light-hearted column used to call me Vish.

Delhivision -- What was more natural than Delhi TV becoming Delhivision
in my column? By the way, television in India was in its early stages
in the 1970s, with a single Government-owned TV station in the Capital,
telecasting a single black-and-white channel for just four hours in the
evening, except in the week-end when there were some more programs.

Bharata'naatyam/Kathak -- Classical dance of North/South India.

Hindustani/Carnatic music -- Classical music of North/South India.

__________

Evening News, New Delhi30 November 1977

Delhiberations

The Russians won't object!

My
friend Ballayram and I are among the thousands of Delhi citizens who
couldn't get either tickets or invitation cards for the Bolshoi and
Russian folk dance shows at the Kamani auditorium.We
had warned each other that we should be alert and ensure our seats
early ; but somehow we've been slack and have been left out.

"I just can't understand why they aren't having these shows at Rabindra Rangshala," Ballayram told me two days ago."Maybe the Russians didn't agree to perform in the open air theatre in this cold weather," I said."Are you out of your mind? The temperature goes far below freezing point in Moscow in the winter!""But they must be having centrally heated auditoriums.""But
Vish, I remember in 1972 a Russian folk dance ensemble did perform in
Rabindra Rangshala in February, when it was just as cold as it is now.""Maybe the folk dancers didn't mind, with their warm costumes, but maybe the Bolshoi people do.""In that case, why not organize at least the folk dances at Rangshala, even if the Bolshoi had to be in Kamani?"

"Don't worry, Ballay!" I said, "Maybe there will be good coverage on Delhivision."

Ballayram
took my statement seriously, so day after day he has been sitting in
front of his television set, waiting for the Bolshoi ballet and the
Russian folk dances to materialize in a big way.

But
except for some bits and scraps now and then, Delhivision hasn't
brought the performances before the eager and expectant public at all. "Oh,
why can't they televise the whole Bolshoi show from beginning to end?"
Ballayram laments. "And why not cover a whole Russian folk dance show
too? Why must art and culture always get only 10 or 15 minutes? Bombay
films get two or three hours at a stretch!""Why
only Russian dances?" I grumble. "Why can't they televise a
full-length Bharata'naatyam or Kathak performance? Or a full-length
Hindustani or Carnatic music recital? Or a Delhi Symphony Orchestra
concert in full? And those boys, Deepak Castelino and Julius Fernandes
-- they just got 10 minutes on a Youth Forum program! Why not give them
half an hour to strum their guitars and sing, in or outside Youth
Forum? Why not give young people a couple of hours at a stretch to let
off steam? Why not scrap a Bombay film on some Saturdays and Sundays?"

"But
dash it all, Vish, the Bolshoi is far more urgent!" my friend
Ballayram wails. "You won't have another chance to see it for a long
time! What prevents them from projecting a full Bolshoi program on
Indian TV, not only in Delhi, but elsewhere too? You don't think the
Russians will have any objection, do you?"

__________

PostScript, 2016

Russians and other 'Russians'

The
1972 'Russian folk dance ensemble' mentioned in the above article was
actually the Moiseyev Dance Company (also called Moiseyev Ballet) of
Moscow, which had an extensive repertoire of folk dances not only of
Russia, but also of other Soviet Republics like Ukraine, Byelorus (White
Russia), etc., and even of some non-Soviet countries. Strictly
speaking, therefore, it should have been called 'Soviet folk dance ensemble'.

However,
40/50 years ago, in ordinary conversations in India we normally
didn't refer to 'Soviet Union' or 'USSR', but used 'Russian' as a
generic expression covering the whole federation of Soviet Socialist
Republics -- just as we often said 'Xerox-copies' instead
of 'photo-copies' , and even said 'Xeroxing' for 'photo-copying'. Thus,
we always referred to the USSR Embassy in New Delhi as the 'Russian
Embassy'.

In
the same spirit, in this blog's headline I have referred to 'Russians'
in a specific as well as generic sense, though I have no idea whether
all the dancers in the Moiseyev team were Russians, or some of them
hailed from other SSRs or even foreign countries. But I am now tempted
to study the Moiseyev Ballet's history and geography thoroughly!

About M.V.Ramakrishnan

M.V. Ramakrishnan is a former Indian civil servant, auditor and diplomat, as well as an amateur journalist. He has written a variety of columns for more than 50 years in some of India's major English newspapers, particularly THE HINDU. His essays and reviews cover a wide territory of diverse topics, ranging from music and culture to policy and government, and they have a refreshingly unique flavour and tone.

MVR's writings had a global and unconventional perspective for a very long time, swimming against the conservative currents of middle-class Indian society. But of late, with the ever-growing modernization and globalization of Indian society and culture, his rebellious spirit paradoxically tends to make his outlook less and less global, and more and more conservative. He now lives in a miraculously pastoral urban setting in South India, and is content to look at the wide world through the telescope of his own past impressions.